Congress desperate as Modi wave continues

Sadly, communal violence has erupted from time to time during most of India's history, one of the worst being the 1984 massacre of more than 8000 Sikhs around the nation following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Rahul is bidding to be the fourth member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to become the leader of his country but there are clear signs that India is tiring of the family. The pot has been stirred by a new book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, in which it is claimed that Sonia Gandhi, in her position as party president, exercised undue influence over Singh, who is retiring as Prime Minister at this election.

Authored by Sanjaya Baru, a former media adviser to Singh, the book quotes the Prime Minister as saying that he had to accept that Sonia Gandhi was the real power in his government.

"I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power. The government is answerable to the party," he reportedly told Baru, shortly after Congress had won re-election in 2009.

This confirms what many Indians have suspected all along – that Singh, who was already over 70 when he took office a decade ago, was taking his orders from Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Modi, the son of a chai wallah, who used to help his father sell tea to commuters outside the railway station in Vadnagar, in northern Gujarat, has often portrayed this election as a contest between a man of the people and the scion of a rich and privileged family that has lost touch with Indian realities. "I am a fish that swims in the sea; Gandhi swims in an aquarium" is one of his favourite sayings.

Which fish the 814-million strong electorate chooses will be known when the votes are counted on May 16.